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The parents of Lucy Letby have criticised the use of footage due to be aired in a new Netflix documentary about their daughter’s crimes as a “complete invasion of privacy” and said watching it would “likely kill us”.
Susan and John Letby questioned why police had released video of Letby’s arrest, which took place in the couple’s house, and said they were worried it would make their home a “tourist attraction”.
In a statement to the Sunday Times, the couple said: “The previous programmes made about Lucy, including Panorama and the almost nightly news showing her being brought out handcuffed in a blue tracksuit, are heartbreaking for us. However, this Netflix documentary is on another level. We had no idea they were using footage in our house. We will not watch it – it would likely kill us if we did.”
According to the trailer, The Investigation of Lucy Letby will feature footage that has “never been released publicly”, as well as interviews with police and lawyers. It is due to be released on 4 February.
It includes video of officers arresting Letby on suspicion of murder and attempted murder while she is sitting in bed, before she is led out of the property in her dressing gown.
Her parents said the footage of Letby “being arrested in her bedroom in our house and her saying goodbye to one of her beloved cats” was “even more distressing”.
“Heaven knows how much more they have to show. All this taking place in the home where we have lived for 40 years. It is in a small cul-de-sac in a small town where everyone knows everyone,” they said. “It is a complete invasion of privacy, of which we would have known nothing if Lucy’s barrister had not told us.”
Letby, 36, is serving 15 whole-life terms after she was convicted of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven others between June 2015 and June 2016.
Her parents claimed Det Supt Paul Hughes, an investigating officer in Letby’s case, seemed to have a “deep hatred” of them.
“Why is Paul Hughes, with whom we always cooperated fully, allowed to show the world what took place in our house that morning and Netflix not even have the decency to tell us?” they said. “He seems to have a deep hatred of us, even though it was us who first went into Blacon police station in March 2017 to report that [the hospital consultants] Stephen Brearey and Ravi Jayaram were making Lucy a scapegoat.”
Last month it was confirmed the former child nurse would face no further charges over additional deaths and collapses of babies that were investigated by police.
In a rare step, Cheshire constabulary spoke out publicly against the decision, saying it was “not the outcome that we had anticipated throughout our investigation”.
Letby has twice been denied permission to appeal against her convictions, and a campaign group that believes her to be innocent has submitted reports to the Criminal Cases Review Commission in an attempt to have her convictions overturned.
Netflix and Cheshire constabulary have been contacted for comment.
